


Nothing But the Whole Truth

by sugahbutt



Series: Merthur [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Curses, M/M, Magic, Possibly OOC, it's not too too bad, just thought you should know, the violence is only in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-11-03 17:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17881829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugahbutt/pseuds/sugahbutt
Summary: In which Arthur gets cursed so that when he lies, the color of his hair changes. Enjoy!P.S. This is my first Merlin/Arthur fic so don't get mad at me if it's OOCEnjoy!





	1. Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is similar to a different Merlin/Arthur fic that i've read, but in that one Merlin is the one whose hair color changes, but it's based on his mood, not whether or not he's lying, I'm not trying to steal their idea, I just thought that it was a cool idea and it wanted to explore it, but if it were Arthur and not Merlin.

"Merlin!" Arthur shouts, turning around to see his servant standing face-to-face with the creature that they're fighting, and almost out of pure instinct, he runs towards the creature, sword pointed out in front of him as he does so.

Without thinking he stabs the creature in the chest, piercing just below the heart with what can only be described as a crunch, causing the thing to stand on it's hind legs, roaring, or more like shrieking as it's face contorts with pain up to the sky, arms flailing around before it falls onto it's back. It's chest heaving as it struggles to breath, blood pouring from the mortal wound that Arthur has inflicted upon it, now that Arthur has pulled his sword out of the creature and is now holding it at his side. The creature, most likely using the last of it's energy, turns its head to look at Arthur before opening it's mouth, allowing a thick cloud of what looks like purplish green smoke to come out before it envelopes itself around Arthur, causing himself to begin coughing violently before he falls to ground, unconscious from the foreign gas, sword falling to the ground beside him.

"Arthur?" Merlin calls as he scrambles towards the other man to make sure that he's alright. "Arthur?" He asks again, crouching down next to the other man before he shakes him slightly, shaking him harder after receiving no response. "Arthur? Wake up goddamnit." He says again, shaking Arthur even harder this time, causing the other man to actually wake up.

"Merlin?" Arthur asks, sounding confused as he looks around, eyes focusing and his brain processing what's around him. "Help me up, would you?" He says before he gets up, with the help of Merlin, obviously.

"Are you alright?" Merlin asks, wanting to make sure that Arthur was injured before they go back to the castle to report that the creature has been killed.

"Yeah, fine." Arthur says with a nod, looking over at the creature that lay dead on the ground, not noticing his hair, which has now changed from it's normal blonde to a darker, almost dirtier blonde. "Let's get going, I want to get back to the castle before dark." He adds as he grabs his sword from where it lay on the ground. "What're you waiting for, Merlin?" He asks after having walked a few paces, noticing that Merlin wasn't following him, hair having changed back to it's original shade, or hue, of blonde.

"Your hair, it changed color." Merlin says sounding confused, eyes still trained on Arthurs hair, wondering if it'll happen again or if it was just a trick of the light, or if he was going crazy, but he knew that it was one of the three.

"What? What're you talking about?" Arthur says, straining his eyes to try and look at his hair, which is nearly impossible without a mirror or some sort of reflective surface. "No it didn't, let's go." He says, his hair changing, turning darker, darker than it changed the first time, once again.

"It did it again!" Merlin says, pointing at Arthur's head, mainly his hair, as it goes back to it's normal shade of blonde. "Huh, it changed back." He adds, completely stumped as to what could be causing this until he remembers the purplish green smoke that came out of the creatures mouth.

"Let's go." Arthur says, sounding impatient now, wanting to get back to the castle to see if his hair has actually changed colors two times now, this time Merlin listens and walks towards him, also wanting to get back to the castle, but for a different reason, he wants to speak to Gaius about what could be causing Arthur's hair color to change.

~*~

"The color changed you say," Gaius says, repeating what Merlin has just told him later on that same day, him sitting at his table with Merlin across from him. "That's rather odd, do you know what creature you were fighting?" He asks, though he assumes that Merlin has no definite, or correct, answer for his question.

"No," Merlin says, sounding slightly defeated, before, once again, remembering the purplish green smoke. "though, when it died, it opened its mouth and this purplish green smoke came out of it and made Arthur pass out." He adds, hoping that will be somewhat helpful for Gaius to find out what creature, and ultimately what curse, that they're dealing with.

"That's strange, I've never heard of a creature like this before." Gaius says before he rises from the table and walks towards one of his many bookshelves, and Merlin assumes that he'll be spending a large amount of time looking through each one of them to find the creature that him and Arthur fought that day. "How many heads did you say it had?" He asks, back turned to Merlin as he looks through the books on the shelf directly in front of his face.

"One, it looked like a mix of a dog and bird though, it was weird looking," Merlin answers, as out of all the creatures and beasts he's encountered ever since he moved to Camelot, this one would have to be the most odd looking, hands down.

"Strange," Gaius mutters as he continues looking through his books until his eyes lands on a particular one, though, Merlin can't see the name as Gaius is standing in the way of his line of sight. "It might be in here." He says, placing the book on the closest piece of desk area to him, before he continues to look at the other books, trying to decide what other books may be useful.

"I'm going to turn in for the night, Gaius, thank you for supper." Merlin says after unsuccessfully stifling a yawn, standing from the chair that he had been sitting in the for the past half hour or so.

"It's no problem, my boy, good night," Gaius says, eyes still trained on the books in front of him for a few seconds before he turns to look at Merlin. "I'll try and figure out what creature it was that you and Arthur fought today," He adds as Merlin takes a few steps towards his room.

"Thanks, Gaius," Merlin says before walking into his room, shutting the door softly behind him.


	2. Back In Camelot

A few days had passed and neither Gaius or Merlin could seem to find what it is that's making Arthur's hair change, or something that would be able to fix it. The guards have noticed, but, not wanting to upset or worry Arthur, Merlin told them what happened and that him and Gaius are working on a way to fix it; so none of them end up saying anything to the prince. Luckily, Arthur's hair wasn't long enough for the prince himself to see it changing colors, and, Merlin hoped anyway, it didn't seem that the prince knew that anything was off, or didn't act as if anything was. Well, that was until today anyways.

"Merlin!" Arthur yells from on his bed to Merlin, who was on the opposite side of his quarters, currently working on cleaning the mess that the prince in question had made the night before, pulling the covers up to just below his chin.

"Coming, my lord." Merlin says with a sigh before turning on his heel to walk closer to Arthur, pausing a foot or two away from the prince's bed, waiting for whatever it is that the prince was going to tell him to do. "Well?" He asks after a few beats of silence, becoming slightly impatient with the man lying a few feet away from him.

"Do you remember that beast that we fought a few days ago? The odd looking one? Well, most beasts look odd, but, the one that looked more odd than the ones that we normally come across." Arthur asks, causing Merlin's heart to sink, hoping that the prince hadn't realized that the beast had done something to him and his 'precious' hair.

"Yes, why do you ask?" Merlin asks, heart sinking lower and lower in his chest as he does so.

"Well, I've been dreaming about it." Arthur says, sounding both embarrassed and confused as he does so.

"Dreaming about it?" Merlin repeats, slightly raising one of his eyebrows in curiosity, not having expected the prince to say, or be experiencing, that.

"I just said that, Merlin." Arthur says, sounding slightly annoyed at his servant for repeating what he had just told him before he continues on speaking. "No matter what dream I'm having, or what type of dream I'm having, it always works its way in and says something along the lines of 'you need to be fully honest with yourself as well as others', and other weird stuff like that." He finishes with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Have you been feeling more compelled to be honest?" Merlin asks, genuinely curious now, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sitting down on one of the nearby chairs.

"Sort of." Arthur says with a shrug, sitting up in his bed, covers pooling around his waist as he does so. "Should I talk to Gaius?" He asks, not knowing if these dreams will manifest themselves into other areas of his life.

"I can talk to Gaius." Merlin says, knowing that this will help narrow down what it is that him and Gaius are looking for.

~*~

"He's been dreaming about the beast?" Gaius repeats later on that night after Merlin had told him about the conversation that him and Arthur had had earlier on that very day.

"Yes, and it's trying to compel him to be honest, maybe that's why his hair is changing color," Merlin says, realization now dawning on him, making him feel like a complete and utter idiot for not noticing that before now. "I'm such an idiot, his hair changes color when he lies!" He says with a triumphant smile and a small laugh to match, Gaius on the other hand doesn't look as victorious as his younger counterpart. "What?" Merlin asks, smile falling from his face.

"This compulsion to tell the truth may strengthen over time if we don't find a cure fast enough, and I don't think anyone in Camelot, especially Uther, would be able to handle an Arthur that was honest one-hundred percent of the time." Gaius says darkly, standing from the seat that he was sitting in before moving closer towards his pile of large, dusty books on almost all known magical beasts. "Well, I can't be the only one trying to find out what this beast was, and what it's capable of doing, even after death." He adds as he opens one of the books and begins to read, Merlin, with a loud sigh, gets up from his own seat and walks towards the pile of books, picks out a different one from Gaius and also begins to read, eyes scanning each page for anything that may present itself to be even somewhat useful.

Hours later, after looking through book upon book upon book, neither Gaius or Merlin have found anything that may, even just slightly, give them some of the information they need to start making a cure for Arthur.

"It's useless, Arthur is going to go around for the rest of life being honest all of the time, the kingdom is going to fall to ruin." Merlin says dramatically as he throws himself back into the chair that he was sitting in earlier, Gaius slowly sitting back down in his own chair across from Merlin.

"Now don't think like that, Merlin, we've had worse things happen since you've come to Camelot, and we figured it out then, so I don't doubt that we'll be able to figure this out now, it's just a matter of when." Gaius says, trying to remain hopeful, though, on the inside, he doesn't believe that his books possess the information that they need to be able to fully help Arthur.

"Yeah, you're right." Merlin says with a nod, still not convinced, but he knows that he still needs to try, as it is the prince, and possibly his safety, that they're talking about.


End file.
